Review: Juan Atkins – Dimensions/Flash Flood

Juan Atkins delivers two super-rare tracks from yesteryear on the first release for the Life’s Good imprint, Dimensions and Flash Flood. The Waveform Transmitter‘s Ste Knight takes a listen to two nostalgic tracks.

Juan Atkins is irrefutably one of the most important figures in the history of electronic music. Alongside Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, as the Belleville Three, pioneered an entire genre and, with it, a musical uprising that was to change the sonic landscape from that day forward. Although it took until 2017 for the trio to ‘officially’ amalgamate under the Belleville Three moniker, both numerous collaboration projects and solo efforts have seen them looked upon as the epicentre of the techno world, and rightly revered as dance music royalty.

September 7th saw Juan Atkins reviving two lost gems from techno’s formative years and releasing them via Life’s Good, an imprint launched by Diagonal Records‘ Jaime Williams. The first, originally released under Atkins’Model 500 alias, Dimensions, is a skittering Detroit workout, which makes excellent use of a frenetic breakbeat to carry the infectious melody, which gives it a definite ‘bleep techno‘ feel. The track was originally released back in 1991, on the groundbreaking Belgian label, Buzz. It came as part of the Panic in Detroit compilation, but has now been re-mastered and re-cut to its own side of wax, thanks to the expertise of Russell Haswell and Rashad Becker.

Flash Flood takes up the flipside, offering up a slightly different version of the original, that many techno heads will be familiar with. Gone are the stabs that heralded the start of the track, in favour of a bounding acid line that should shake up any dancefloor. This is a great re-work, although it remains to be seen what the purists will make of it. This version of the track remains unreleased, up to now, so this is an excellent opportunity to grab yourself an alternate version of the track that has, for two decades, sent crowds the world over into a state of ecstacy.

You can purchase Juan AtkinsDimensions/Flash Flood (Life’s Good), now, from all good vinyl retailers. In the meantime, lets have a listen to the original version of Infiniti‘s Flash Flood.